Morning

• I’d told myself that this wouldn’t be an end-of-the-semester type of list.
• But I got up early this Saturday and there’s something about the way the light shines through the window blinds around eight in the morning. (Sometimes it’s at seven or sometimes at nine, and I never figure out exactly when.) It’s only occasionally that I wake up at exactly the right moment to see the sun coming in at exactly the right angle: the yellow streaks of light grazing the walls; the room illuminated.
• I’d set my alarm for 7:40 that morning. I usually try to sleep in when I can; try to strengthen my appreciation of rest and revel in the comfort of my bed, under my blankets while I keep the fan on (I know). But I’d gone to bed relatively early the night before, and so this Saturday I chose to get up around eight.
• I caught that light streaming in through the window, skirting around the blinds and drawing lines upon the walls.
• I had that Saturday almost free; sat down and dwelled over my coffee instead of chugging it, hand relaxed over the handle of my mug. Got ready without rushing.
• We ran errands most of the morning; picked up my sister’s contact lenses and (I) realized it was too early in the day for Costco samples. Got in and out of my appointment way before the scheduled time. Relearned some of the streets I hadn’t visited in a while.
• I tend to fill my phone — and planner and notebooks and scraps of paper or post-its I find lying around — with bulleted lists of what I’ve got to get done that day, or that week. It’s less often that I check everything off by its original date. Sometimes I wake up only marginally early to get some of it done, but still.
• Even less often am I awake by choice at those few minutes when the light shines through the blinds at that angle; either I am forced out of bed, out of the peace of my pillow, or I manage to fall back asleep — having been awakened by what I suppose were the lightbeams hitting my face.
• I’d forgotten what it’s like to get up extra early because I want to, and how much I can get done before noon.
• How the light actually keeps shining through the window like that for some time; how nice it is to catch it when the sun’s already up, but hasn’t yet reached the heights of midday. How blissful those moments seem when I can linger as I please but still, to my delayed amazement, fit so much productivity between eight a.m. and twelve.

— Lora